30.06.08 Caught by the fuzz

On Saturday night, we went to a Sex in the City party. It was an interesting evening for three reason, firstly, we were spared the film, which I can only imagine is eye-gougingly awful; secondly and refreshingly, there were openly gay people there—the first we’ve seen since leaving London; and thirdly, we were stopped by the police on the drive home. Back in Blighty, this would have been serious: the car was overloaded, had only one headlight and was being driven by someone who, while not drunk, would not pass a breath test. Here, there were anxious moments, some uncomfortable grovelling, the passing of a 20 boliviano note and we were on our way. The most depressing part of this was how pathetically cheap it is to corrupt the police: 20 bolies is about £1.50.

15.6.8 Brazil, it ain't.

I doubt the chant: “It’s like watching Brazil” has ever been applied to the Bolivian national team. But a game against arch rivals Chile in a last ditch attempt to stay in the qualification race for the World Cup should at least have had some spice to it. We arrived at the concrete monolith in time to hear both team’s fans politely respecting each other's anthem—it turned out the Bolivian’s were saving their whistling for the Chilean keeper.

Fans unfurled flags the size of Liechenstein, bounced up and down, set off bangers and fireworks, and the Chileans chanted along to a huge drum. Promising stuff! I wanted flares and the equivalent of burning Lambrettas (llamas?) being thrown off the upper tiers. Sadly, once the game kicked off, the home fans were disappointingly quiet—and I’ve watched Arsenal vs Watford at the Emirates.

Still, the first goal was a beauty, the ball hammered off the cross bar, was headered back into the box and bicycled kicked from the penalty spot into the goal. Blimey! The Chileans celebrated as if they had won the World Cup.

The Bolivians may not chant but they must have an impressive reputation for throwing: riot police protected Chilean corner takers with their shields, and escorted the ref and linesmen off the field in a Roman testudo-like formation.

9.5.8 There's a riot going on - during the footie!

Innocently watching Euro2008 in an open fronted café, I was distracted by a noisy demonstration. Hundreds of cholitas in bowler hats and men in baseball caps streamed past carrying banners, chanting and firing dynamite fuses into the air. The official advice is stay away these “manifestacions” but that doesn’t take into account viewing live sport. Instead, I watched as they concertinaed to a stop outside, a man stared at me and began a chant of “Death to the Yankees!”

I smiled sweetly, packed my laptop in my bag and observed the café’s security guard take out his truncheon. They moved on again and it all calmed down. 0-0 at half time. Twenty minutes into the second half (still 0-0), a crowd of cholitas ran past, the noise picked up and suddenly the road was packed. A roar went up, missiles were thrown, shops boarded up as glass smashed, something hit me on the leg–not a dynamite fuse, thank God.

The excitement passed, and I returned to the game (no excitement here: 0-0). Another distraction when tear gas was let off, as someone in the first flush of a highly productive cold, this could have been spectacularly unpleasant. Fortunately, I suffered no exacerbation to my existing symptoms.

At the final whistle it had been a soul-sappingly tedious 90 minutes of football for everyone who wasn’t Romanian or sitting next to a minor riot.

The demonstration was instigated by a story that the US was giving amnesty to former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain. An iron-fisted fellow, he’s held responsible for the killing of 60 residents of El Alto when the country went into meltdown in 2003. The marchers had descended from the Altipano and were en route for the fortress-like US embassy, where fireworks and tear gas were exchanged.

26.05.08 Precious little peace in the cemetery district

The trip to Qutapampa had taken five hours, while the return trip lasted seven (with a 30-second piss stop after a child was sick). It was 2am when we arrived at the La Paz cemetery district late but alive. I was keen to stretch my legs, when a couple of ladies urged me not to go. Curiously, neither she nor anyone else was making any effort to leave the stinking vehicle.

Fearfully, she said that the area was dangerous and full of thieves, so we should stay on the bus. Absolutely everyone else was doing exactly that—waiting until the sun rose. It did look quite rough outside; there were lots of drunk people shouting, relieving themselves, snogging and fighting.

It reminded me of Watford. However, here it’s not safe for westerners to pick up taxis, there have been too many recent hostage takings. Instead, we sat with the others and waited for our radio taxi to turn up. We pitied the long frightened night these poor country folk had ahead.

25.05.08 The trail ends (in a shambles)

I was up with the sun and admired how the corrals and thatched houses, built from the rock, seemed to complement the mountain they made of. The village was noisy with the sounds of birds waking, llamas sneezing, pigs rooting, kids shouting and gnarled herders rousing their stock and clearing their passages.

Before my breakfast, I watched the admirable llamas chewing: top lip resolutely unmoving, bottom lip dropping and sweeping to the right exposing a line of fine gnashers, before centring and mirroring the process.

As the clouds cleared to reveal distant mountains, the herds were ushered to their grazing across the village football pitch (a community of 10 would have a full-sized pitch in Bolivia). As fuel, llama and alpaca waste is a precious resource, which they thoughtfully deposit in the same spot. Hundreds of them passed, performing their morning abolutions on the centre spot and rolling in the dust where the corner flag would be.

Our gang of five (Susi, guide, small girl herder, donkey and I) followed a river valley towards our final destination. Throughout the morning our surroundings became progressively greener and readily liveable. As the air warmed in the sun, the fertile land was increasingly agricultural, made up of fields and terraces. Chicken, goats and cows replacing the alpachas, who find don't find the warmth and low altitude (3,300 metres) to their liking.

A band was playing in the pretty town square where our bus was to leave from. We left the women dancing, while the men were drinking and had lunch. It sounded like children had been given bells to accompany the band. Drunk children.

After some days without washing, our trip to the hot springs was keenly anticipated. Condors wheeled overhead as we wallowed in the hot green water trying to ignore the drowned flies.

We returned to the square to find a hotbed of comedy drunkeness: they were now speaking the universal pissed language of pirate noises, while guffawing, hugging each other for support and singing tuneless, wordless songs. I should not find this quite so amusing.

24.05.08 Picadilly Circus

Today our donkeywork was done by a donkey, he was accompanied by a friendly old boy with a huge wad of coca in his cheek. With our guide, we walked down the Valley of the Condors to some romantically overgrown 1,000-year-old ruins at the meeting point of three valleys. They’ve been untroubled by archaeologists and anthropologists, and are still used for ceremonies.

In January, the three local communities meet here to celebrate the new year and pray for good luck. A ceremony like the one we had seen the evening before is performed but on a much larger scale in which a llama is sacrificed and buried. This has been taking place in the same spot for generations and bones strewn in the area bear witness to its grisly purpose.

Today’s destination felt much more like a successful, functioning community. At the end of their working day we watched as llamas, alpacas, donkeys, sheep, dogs and herders of both genders and all possible ages filed past and made arrangements for the night. The story of mothers and their separated young being reunited was played out by the different species. Clouds settled over distant mountains at the end of a long valley forming a white plane and the sun set.

23.05.08 More tea please, shaman

After a cold night even under five blankets we gingerly made our way to the rudimentary bathroom (there was no bath for one thing). I had no idea that water could be so cold and yet not in cubes.

There were high hopes of some warming tea, and a thermos arrived accompanied by four tired coca leaves, some elderly camomile, a few sprigs of parsley and some anonymous old weeds. Pretty uninspiring; however, after I had slung some greenery, sugar and a generous jolt of Jamaican rum into my mug, the world began to feel like a much better place.

After our brekkie, we were introduced to a herd of corralled alpacas. We were late and they were waiting to be taken on to the hills to feed. I can now reveal that a hungry alpaca makes a noise not dissimilar to a very small Formula 1 car.

This was our first day trekking, and our crew was made up of a llama to carry our gear, accompanied by his—only the males are used as porters—seven llama chums; our guide; an elderly lady herder, and an 8-year-old trainee girl herder (not a trainee herder of girls, obviously). It was wonderful to watch the llamas—the princes of the Andes—they have a camel-like gait, precise movements, intelligent eyes and a proud demeanor—they hate to be touched.

After a truly glorious walk, Susi and I arrived at our tiny hamlet destination in time for lunch—our residence was a stonewalled cottage with a thatched roof. While we were now thirsty, hungry and exhausted, the old woman and young girl immediately began the entirely uphill journey home. Suitably emasculated, I collapsed into a chair, which in turn collapsed under me.

We were now a couple of hundred metres lower, a few hardy things can grow here, and Susi even claims she saw a tree. But community life seemed rather sad and hard; emigration is only going one way. An astonishingly beautiful view is not enough.

We had arranged for a ceremony in the evening, so the shaman arrived with his helper, laid out his effects and tucked into his coca leaves. Initially, our good luck ceremony involved whirls of alpaca wool under alpaca fat, petals, red wine, 95% proof alcohol, more coca and lots of words I did not understand. Later, we wished good luck to people and an alpaca fetus was wrapped in gold foil and flowers. I had to hold it to my heart, then it was put in an incense-infused fire as a sacrifice to Pachamama (Earth Mother).

Not what I am used to.